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Aug. 1st, 2005
The Tiger in the Well
Aug. 1st, 2005 06:54 pmOne of my keen frustrations of the past many months has been the lack of really good books to read. I keep picking up books, reading 20-40-60 pages, putting them down, and forgetting I had ever picked them up.
Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyvivien wrote about the Sally Lockhart series by Philip Pullman, better known for his His Dark Materials series, which starts with The Golden Compass. I had read all three books of HDM, and hadn't liked them well enough to keep. But I've been enjoying Sally Lockhart.
Enjoying, until today. Today I read about a young single mother in Victorian London, a career woman, who had built her business with her own smarts and determination, who had an unknown enemy claim that she had married him and then deserted him, taking their child with him and stealing his money. The first third of the book relates the relentless destruction of her life, as Victorian law and society, which doesn't recognize a wife as an independent being, nor a single mother as having even the possibility of virtue, calmly and without question accepts every well-documented lie her enemy tells, as he tries to gain custody of her young daughter and deprive her of all her assets.
By the time I was finished with my lunch today, my stomach hurt. I've had some ambivalent feelings about motherhood from the beginning, but the story of Sally's desperate struggle to keep her daughter from being taken had me in knots of empathy.
Traffic was bad on the way home today, and my own daughter staying the night with my parents, so I ended up pulling over to the curb on the non-freeway route I was taking home, turning off the car and reading. I sat there for over ninety minutes, because I absolutely had to finish the story. It didn't help that I knew, intellectually, that Sally would triumph. But I couldn't bear the suspense. I had to reassure myself that all did End Well.
I can't remember the last time I read a book I simply could not put down.
Then
ladyvivien wrote about the Sally Lockhart series by Philip Pullman, better known for his His Dark Materials series, which starts with The Golden Compass. I had read all three books of HDM, and hadn't liked them well enough to keep. But I've been enjoying Sally Lockhart.Enjoying, until today. Today I read about a young single mother in Victorian London, a career woman, who had built her business with her own smarts and determination, who had an unknown enemy claim that she had married him and then deserted him, taking their child with him and stealing his money. The first third of the book relates the relentless destruction of her life, as Victorian law and society, which doesn't recognize a wife as an independent being, nor a single mother as having even the possibility of virtue, calmly and without question accepts every well-documented lie her enemy tells, as he tries to gain custody of her young daughter and deprive her of all her assets.
By the time I was finished with my lunch today, my stomach hurt. I've had some ambivalent feelings about motherhood from the beginning, but the story of Sally's desperate struggle to keep her daughter from being taken had me in knots of empathy.
Traffic was bad on the way home today, and my own daughter staying the night with my parents, so I ended up pulling over to the curb on the non-freeway route I was taking home, turning off the car and reading. I sat there for over ninety minutes, because I absolutely had to finish the story. It didn't help that I knew, intellectually, that Sally would triumph. But I couldn't bear the suspense. I had to reassure myself that all did End Well.
I can't remember the last time I read a book I simply could not put down.
I just did my first real workout since leaving for the Quest.
That experience totally threw off all my physical rhythms: eating, sleeping, exercising. It's taken me this long to get back on track. Thank God for Jade, my dear trainer. I called him last Thursday to talk, and he was unequivocably encouraging, and told me that a break can be necessary sometimes, and he was sure that when I started up again I'd be as strong as ever.
That man is the best cheerleader I could imagine.
That experience totally threw off all my physical rhythms: eating, sleeping, exercising. It's taken me this long to get back on track. Thank God for Jade, my dear trainer. I called him last Thursday to talk, and he was unequivocably encouraging, and told me that a break can be necessary sometimes, and he was sure that when I started up again I'd be as strong as ever.
That man is the best cheerleader I could imagine.
